In the conventional shoe-making process, a shoe is made by connecting multiple pieces of shoe parts. Consequently, the materials and the process for manufacturing the shoes become very complicated. In recent years, owing to better permeability and comfort, less consumables required, and lower cost in the manufacturing process compared to conventional shoes, knitted shoes have quickly developed and gradually occupied a place in the market.
As mentioned above, generally, knitted shoes are made by knitting yarns to form a shoe blank using the knitting machine and further attaching the shoe blank to the shoe sole through processing. Here, the shapes of the shoe blanks formed by knitting are varied with the various types of knitting machines and knitting methods. Limited by the number of needle beds and current methods of knitting, two-needle-bed flat knitting machines commonly used in the industry generally knit and form a two-dimensional shoe blank in a sheet fabric form first, then the two-dimensional shoe blanks are further processed through seaming techniques to build a three-dimensional shape. However, due to the delicate and tedious seaming work required, it is hard to improve the production efficiency of the knitted shoes. In addition, two-dimensional shoe blanks usually only contain the part that covers the foot dorsal, resulting in lack of proper protection for the plantar, and such a two-dimensional shoe blank without the plantar part makes its conjugation and seaming with the shoe sole much more difficult. Accordingly, the level of difficulty in the conjugation and the seaming of two-dimensional shoe blanks in the sheet fabric form is further increased.
In view of the above-mentioned reasons, it is necessary to develop an integrated shoe blank with various three-dimensional structures, and the corresponding methods for manufacturing or knitting the integrated shoe blank with various three-dimensional structures.